A Force Like Gravity

This was a holiday-shorted week, due to Good Friday, and we are posting this Monday evening due to today being a holiday in much of the world. Gold and silver went up the dollar went down, +$33 and +$0.53 -64mg gold and -.05g silver. The prices of the metals in dollar terms are readily available, and the price of the dollar in terms of honest money can be easily calculated.

Curved space-time… eventually, it will get you. The image above depicts the binary system PSR J0348+0432 – a neutron star orbited by a white dwarf in the constallation Taurus, discovered in 2007 [PT]

Illustration by John Antoniadis

The point of this Report is to look into the market to understand the fundamentals of supply and demand. This can’t necessarily tell you what the price will do tomorrow. However, it tells you where the price should be, if physical metal were to clear based on supply and demand.

Of course, two factors make this very interesting. One is that the speculators use leverage, and they can move the price around. At least for a while. The other is that the fundamentals change.

There is no guarantee that the prices of the metals will reach the fundamental price of a given day. Think of the fundamentals as gravity, not the strongest force in the system but inexorable, tugging every day.

Fundamental Developments

This week, the fundamentals of both metals moved, though not together. We will take a look at that below, but first, the price and ratio charts.

Prices of gold and silver – click to enlarge.

Next, this is a graph of the gold price measured in silver, otherwise known as the gold to silver ratio. It didn’t move much this week.

Gold-silver ratio – click to enlarge.

For each metal, we will look at a graph of the basis and co-basis overlaid with the price of the dollar in terms of the respective metal. It will make it easier to provide brief commentary. The dollar will be represented in green, the basis in blue and co-basis in red.

Here is the gold graph.

Gold basis and co-basis and the dollar price – click to enlarge.

The scarcity (i.e. the co-basis, the red line) is in a gentle rising trend for about six months. This week, the co-basis was down slightly. Not a surprise given the (relatively) big price move of +$33. Nor does it appear to break the trend.

Our calculated fundamental price of gold is at $1,301, just above the market price.

Now let’s look at silver.

Silver basis and co-basis and the dollar price – click to enlarge.

In silver, it’s much harder to say that there is an uptrend in the co-basis. Our indicator of scarcity is at the same level it was in October. Back then, the price of silver was $17.60 and on Thursday it was just about 90 cents higher.

The fundamental price back then was just under $15. Now it’s just under $16.50. This happens to be down about 40 cents this week.

With the fundamental price of gold rising, and that of silver falling, it’s not surprising that the fundamental gold-silver ratio is up to a bit over 79.

Dr. Keith Weiner is the president of the Gold Standard Institute USA, and CEO of Monetary Metals. Keith is a leading authority in the areas of gold, money, and credit and has made important contributions to the development of trading techniques founded upon the analysis of bid-ask spreads. Keith is a sought after speaker and regularly writes on economics. He is an Objectivist, and has his PhD from the New Austrian School of Economics. He lives with his wife near Phoenix, Arizona.

You may have noticed that our so-called “semiannual” funding drive, which started sometime in the summer if memory serves, has seamlessly segued into the winter. In fact, the year is almost over! We assure you this is not merely evidence of our chutzpa; rather, it is indicative of the fact that ad income still needs to be supplemented in order to support upkeep of the site. Naturally, the traditional benefits that can be spontaneously triggered by donations to this site remain operative regardless of the season - ranging from a boost to general well-being/happiness (inter alia featuring improved sleep & appetite), children including you in their songs, up to the likely allotment of privileges in the afterlife, etc., etc., but the Christmas season is probably an especially propitious time to cross our palms with silver.
A special thank you to all readers who have already chipped in, your generosity is greatly appreciated. Regardless of that, we are honored by everybody's readership and hope we have managed to add a little value to your life.

Most read in the last 20 days:

Unprecedented Extremes in Overbought Readings
Readers may recall our recent articles on the blow-off move in the stock market, entitled Punch-Drunk Investors and Extinct Bears (see Part 1 & Part 2 for the details). Bears remained firmly extinct as of last week – in fact, some of the sentiment indicators we are keeping tabs on have become even more stretched, as incredible as that may sound. For instance, assets in bullish Rydex funds exceeded bear assets by a factor of more than 37...

When to Sell?
The common thread running through the collective minds of present U.S. stock market investors goes something like this: A great crash is coming. But first there will be an epic run-up climaxing with a massive parabolic blow off top. Hence, to capitalize on the final blow off, investors must let their stock market holdings ride until the precise moment the market peaks – and not a moment more. That’s when investors should sell their stocks and go to...

Actions and Reactions
Down markets, like up markets, are both dazzling and delightful. The shock and awe of near back-to-back 1,000 point Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA) free-falls is indeed spectacular. There are many reasons to revel in it. Today we shall share a few. To begin, losing money in a multi-day stock market dump is no fun at all. We'd rather get our teeth drilled by a dentist. Still, a rapid selloff has many positive qualities.
Memorable moments from...

Short and Long Term Forecasts
Predicting the likely path of the prices of the metals in the near term is easy. Just look at the fundamentals. We have invested many man-years in developing the theory, model, and software to calculate it. Every week we publish charts and our calculated fundamental prices.
A selection of 1 and ½ ounce gold bars – definitely more fondle-friendly than bitcoin, but a bit more cumbersome to send around. [PT]
However, predicting the...

Something for Nothing
The world is full of bad ideas. Just look around. One can hardly blink without a multitude of bad ideas coming into view. What’s more, the worse an idea is, the more popular it becomes. Take Mickey’s Fine Malt Liquor. It’s nearly as destructive as prescription pain killers. Yet people chug it down with reckless abandon.
Looking at the expression of this Mickey's Malt Liquor tester one might initially get the impression that he is...

It's Just a Flesh Wound – But a Sad Day for Vol Sellers
On January 31 we wrote about the unprecedented levels - for a stock market index that is - the weekly and monthly RSI of the DJIA had reached (see: “Too Much Bubble Love, Likely to Bring Regret” for the astonishing details – provided you still have some capacity for stock market-related astonishment). We will take the opportunity to toot our horn by reminding readers that we highlighted VIX calls of all things as a worthwhile...

Opportunities in the Junior Mining Sector
Maurice Jackson of Proven and Probable has recently interviewed Jayant Bandari, the publisher of Capitalism and Morality and a frequent contributor to this site. The topics discussed include currencies, bitcoin, gold and above all junior gold stocks (i.e., small producers and explorers). Jayant shares some of his best ideas in the segment, including arbitrage opportunities currently offered by pending takeovers – which is an area that generally...

Contradictory Palaver
The recent hullabaloo among President Trump’s top monetary officials about the Administration’s “dollar policy” is just the start of what will likely be the first of many contradictory pronouncements and reversals which will take place in the coming months and years as the world’s reserve currency continues to be compromised. So far, the Greenback has had its worst start since 1987, the year of a major stock market reset.
A modern-day...

Well Known Seasonal Trends
Readers are very likely aware of the “Halloween effect” or the Santa Claus rally. The former term refers to the fact that stocks on average tend to perform significantly worse in the summer months than in the winter months, the latter term describes the typically very strong advance in stocks just before the turn of the year. Both phenomena apply to the broad stock market, this is to say, to benchmark indexes such as the S&P 500 or the...

FOMC Strategy Revisited
As readers know, investment and trading decisions can be optimized with the help of statistics. One way of doing so is offered by the FOMC meeting strategy.
The rate hikes are actually leading somewhere – after the Wile E. Coyote moment, the FOMC meeting strategy is especially useful [PT]
A study published by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York in 2011 examined the effect of FOMC meetings on stock prices. The study concluded that these...

Copper vs. Oil
The Q1 2018 meeting of the Incrementum Fund's Advisory Board took place on January 24, about one week before the recent market turmoil began. In a way it is funny that this group of contrarians who are well known for their skeptical stance on the risk asset bubble, didn't really discuss the stock market much on this occasion. Of course there was little to add to what was already talked about extensively at previous meetings. Moreover, the main focus was on the topic...

Mnuchin Gets It
United States Secretary of Treasury Steven Mnuchin has a sweet gig. He writes rubber checks to pay the nation’s bills. Yet, somehow, the rubber checks don’t bounce. Instead, like magic, they clear. How this all works, considering the nation’s technically insolvent, we don’t quite understand. But Mnuchin gets it. He knows exactly how full faith and credit works – and he knows plenty more.
Master of the Mint and economy wizard Steven Mnuchin and...